Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk: The United Nations World Water Development Report 4

This report introduces new aspects of water issues: 1) it reintroduces the 12 challenge area reports that provided the foundation for the first two World Water Development Reports (WWDR); 2) 4 new reports on water quality, groundwater, gender, and desertification, land degradation and drought; 3) in recognition that the global challenges of water can vary considerably across countries and regions, a series of 5 regional reports have been included; 4) a deeper analysis of the main external forces of freshwater resources and possibilities for their future evolution; 5) managing water under uncertainty and risk

MANAGING KNOWLEDGE AND DATA FOR A BETTER DECISION IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

In the current context, the society is dominated by the rapid development of computer networks and the integration of services and facilities offered by the Internet environment at the organizational level. The success of an organization depends largely on the quality and quantity of information it has available to develop quickly decisions able to meet the current needs. The need for a collaborative environment within the central administration leads to the unification of resources and instruments around the Center of Government, to increase both the quality and efficiency of decision - making, especially reducing the time spent with decision - making, and upgrading the decision – making act.administration, strategy, decision, complex systems, management, infrastructure, e-government, information society, government platform.

Managing Customer Services: Human Resource Practices, Turnover, and Sales Growth

This study examines the relationship between human resource practices, employee quit rates, and organizational performance by drawing on a unique nationally representative sample of 354 customer service and sales establishments in the telecommunications industry. Multivariate analyses show that quit rates are lower and sales growth is higher in establishments that emphasize high skills, employee participation in decision-making and in teams, and HR incentives such as high relative pay and employment security. Quit rates partially mediate the relationship between human resource practices and sales growth. These relationships also are moderated by the customer segment that frontline employees serve

Indicators and methods for assessing the quality of logistic activity processes

Purpose: This article is aimed at identifying and evaluating the quality and safety indicators of processes in the logistics system and solving the problems of product control in the goods’ distribution process. Design/Methodology/Approach: In order to assess the risks and quality of control methods in the goods’ distribution processes, studies were carried out in the process of grain supply, on which the risk assessment was tested using the fault tree using a qualitative approach with a deductive logic, which allowed to identify events at the lower levels of the system. To evaluate the results when comparing various methods of monitoring the characteristics of products in the product distribution process certain statistical tools were used. The evaluation with comparative tests is required in order to determine the way of measuring products in the goods distribution logistics system. The study uses the methods of formalization, analysis, measurement, experimental and comparison. Findings: The considered risk assessment method and the given example allow us to recommend its use for the product distribution processes for various purposes. A technique is proposed for comparing various control methods based on statistical tools that can be recommended for various goods’ distribution operations. Practical implications: The results of the study can be applied in practice to improve the quality of goods’ distribution processes and reduce risks in the various supply chains. Originality/value: The main contribution of this study is to shift the emphasis on the assessment of processes in goods’ distribution to the positions of a risk-based approach and the use of various statistical tools in logistics’ activities.peer-reviewe

Applying Real Options Thinking to Information Security in Networked Organizations

An information security strategy of an organization participating in a networked business sets out the plans for designing a variety of actions that ensure confidentiality, availability, and integrity of company’s key information assets. The actions are concerned with authentication and nonrepudiation of authorized users of these assets. We assume that the primary objective of security efforts in a company is improving and sustaining resiliency, which means security contributes to the ability of an organization to withstand discontinuities and disruptive events, to get back to its normal operating state, and to adapt to ever changing risk environments. When companies collaborating in a value web view security as a business issue, risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis techniques are necessary and explicit part of their process of resource allocation and budgeting, no matter if security spendings are treated as capital investment or operating expenditures. This paper contributes to the application of quantitative approaches to assessing risks, costs, and benefits associated with the various components making up the security strategy of a company participating in value networks. We take a risk-based approach to determining what types of security a strategy should include and how much of each type is enough. We adopt a real-options-based perspective of security and make a proposal to value the extent to which alternative components in a security strategy contribute to organizational resiliency and protect key information assets from being impeded, disrupted, or destroyed

Project benefit management: a conceptual framework of target benefit formulation

Successful realization of project benefits is strongly associated with organizational performance. Formulating project target benefits is regarded as the first and critical step in the benefit management process. In this study, we drew upon relevant theories and conducted in-depth interviews with senior managers in Australia to develop a conceptual framework of project target benefit formulation and corresponding propositions. Our findings highlight the important role of project target benefits in funding decision-making and suggest seven criteria for their appraisal (strategic fit, target value, measurability, realism, target date, accountability and comprehensiveness) and four constructs which improve the formulated target benefits (a formal benefit formulation process, senior executive leadership, senior executive supports, and public service motivation). These findings extend the current literature on project benefit management by providing a holistic view on how project target benefits should be formulated and appraised

Securing circulation pharmaceutically: antiviral stockpiling and pandemic preparedness in the European Union

Governments in Europe and around the world amassed vast pharmaceutical stockpiles in anticipation of a potentially catastrophic influenza pandemic. Yet the comparatively ‘mild’ course of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provoked considerable public controversy around those stockpiles, leading to questions about their cost–benefit profile and the commercial interests allegedly shaping their creation, as well as around their scientific evidence base. So, how did governments come to view pharmaceutical stockpiling as such an indispensable element of pandemic preparedness planning? What are the underlying security rationalities that rapidly rendered antivirals such a desirable option for government planners? Drawing upon an in-depth reading of Foucault’s notion of a ‘crisis of circulation’, this article argues that the rise of pharmaceutical stockpiling across Europe is integral to a governmental rationality of political rule that continuously seeks to anticipate myriad circulatory threats to the welfare of populations – including to their overall levels of health. Novel antiviral medications such as Tamiflu are such an attractive policy option because they could enable governments to rapidly modulate dangerous levels of (viral) circulation during a pandemic, albeit without disrupting all the other circulatory systems crucial for maintaining population welfare. Antiviral stockpiles, in other words, promise nothing less than a pharmaceutical securing of circulation itself